Basketball has long been my favorite sport, but it is growing increasingly difficult for me to really care about even the most important games because the officiating is so consistently abysmal.  The NBA suffered the scandal of referee Tim Donaghy and his gambling crimes.  Then Donaghy turned whistleblower and confirmed what most who watch the L closely already knew, that the league picks refs for certain games and attempts to influence referees to favor certain teams in order to make more money.  The putrid officiating in Game 6 of the 2002 NBA Finals was not an unfortunate outlier, but the natural product of the way the league seems to operate.

Of course the NBA has made some changes to improve officiating.  The NBA should be praised for decreasing the amount of hand checking and holding that took place in the 1990s, helping the sport become fluid and more closely resemble the way it is actually supposed to be played (assuming the rules are not entirely optional).  But too often in the playoffs, the same bad tendencies arise and officials miss critical calls that are decisive to outcomes, or they simply let illegal physical play get out of control to the point where nothing can be done.

Last year’s NBA Finals illustrates this perfectly.  In the second game of the Finals, LeBron hacked Kevin Durant three times with around ten second remaining and the Thunder down two points, as Durant drove to the basket.  The no-calls decided the game and the series was probably a done deal at that point too.  Others may point to other missed calls and argue that they even out over the course of a game.  This is simply not true.  It is one of the myths to which people cling in order to believe the best team will inevitably win.  The fact is that we do not know who was the best team on that night, and we cannot say what the outcome of the series would have been had the Thunder won game two.

This year’s NCAA tournament was filled with incredibly incompetent officiating.  Both Final 4 games were arguably decided by the officials making incorrect calls, while the officiating in the championship game was glaringly awful, as was obvious to Steve Kerr, Phil Jackson, and nearly every other neutral observer.  But no game showed the costs of loose officiating more than the Florida-Florida Gulf Coast game.  The refs did what no one else in the tournament could do: they made Florida Gulf Coast boring, allowing Florida to grab, bump, and hold them until the outcome was decided.  Where was the razzle-dazzle?  It was stolen by the officials.

Refusing to call clear fouls perverts the sport.  It produces unjust outcomes.  It strips the game of its most appealing features.  It is simply a disgrace to the sport.

Why does this awful officiating persist then?  One cause is sheer incompetence.  A second is the “let them play” mentality that is shared by couch jockeys and referees alike.  The “let them play” (a euphemism for “let them foul”) mentality is indicative of two larger cultural problems: the American love of violence and disdain for rules.

The first factor is the American love of violence.  It is not a coincidence that the NFL is the most popular sport in the US today.  It delivers the violence that millions of Americans crave.  And over time basketball has become more and more a game of brute strength.  Defense that is not played with the defender’s hands is done by sliding in on players in the air, eliciting charge calls for obvious blocks.  But we have that violent collision, so who cares, I suppose.  With this mentality, sports is at its best when it is all about people colliding and grappling with each other with the strongest man winning out (yes, man—most of these guys dislike women’s basketball, unlike people like John Wooden who love(d) the actual sport).

The cost of this faux-macho nonsense is that it seriously increases the risk of injury to players.  As no-calls increase, players grow frustrated (and/or realize what they can get away with), foul harder, and the risk of serious injury rises.  Do Americans like this?  They love big hits in the NFL even if they know what these hits have done to ex-players, leaving some broken, battered, and even debilitated.  Yet sports radio talk show callers bash the NFL for trying to increase its safety standards.

The second cultural factor behind “let them play” might be the rampant libertarianism and individualism that is all too common in our country, which leads people to conflate authentic freedom with license.   It has infected our politics; it would be surprising if it did not poison our sports as well.

Liberty to do anything one feels like doing is not authentic freedom.  In life, moral rules provide a structure that creates purpose and allows for human flourishing.  On the court, rules are what allow for fair, quality basketball games.  Bumps, holds, grabs, pushes, and other small offenses that are not called strip the game of its basic nature and structure.  They substitute license for liberty—for the freedom to play the sport freely and fairly.

Overall, the failure to call most hand checks and body fouls has resulted in a rougher, less skilled version of the sport.  Quickness and agility lose their true value.  So does teamwork.  The referees are to blame, as much as anything else, for the shift away from team basketball toward over-individualized approaches that rely on isolation sets and hero ball.  When players get held on backdoor cuts and similar illegal defensive shortcuts are overlooked, players are forced to engage in one-on-one play out of necessity.  But perhaps there is something about contested step-back jumpers (rather than bounce passes to the backdoor cutter) that appeals to people in a culture that fetishizes individualism.

When games are officiated this way, rules become capricious, arbitrary.  Players get into foul trouble because they have no idea what they are and are not permitted to do.  Cheating is rewarded and those who follow the rules are punished.  Not only does this type of officiating alter outcomes by producing unjust outcomes on individual plays and by altering the strategy and flow of the game, it shapes who is and is not on the floor.

I love watching basketball, but it will never be like it was when I was a child and I was blissfully unaware that many games and even championships are determined by the officials.  That ideal that “the best team will win in the end” is sadly too often a fantasy.  So my passion for the sport has somewhat diminished, but I can still enjoy the incredible displays of artistry, athleticism, skill, teamwork, and determination that keep me coming back for more.  I just can’t be thrilled by championships decided by men in striped shirts (or whatever else refs wear these days).  I just hope that one day there will be a shift back toward the actual sport where all those things that draw me back each time can really flourish, rather than sliding more and more toward a slightly more credible version of WWE.